


Happy copy of Eden

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Series: Tsukishima trepa por Chile (bueno, en realidad no) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Character, Future Fic, M/M, Mentioned yamayachi because I can, Original Character(s), Tanaka and Tsukishima definitely aren't friends (except they are), This is the most self-indulgent thing ever, Warning for homophobic slurs in Spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3473540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukishima Kei’s summer-break included an improvised trip, booze, seafood, the messiest soundtrack ever, too many texted conversations with Tanaka and Yamaguchi, embarrassing amounts of pining, a new word and one relevant question. Also, what might have been attempts to convince him of the power of friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy copy of Eden

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought "What would happen if Tsukishima went to my country?" and it became this.
> 
> Unbeta-ed and English isn't my first language, so could you please tell me about any mistakes you see?

**Track 1:[Hungarian Dance No. 5 – Johannes Brahms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X9LvC9WkkQ)**

It all starts with a text message, one line from his cousin asking him if he wants to go to Chile.

**_Why?_ **

**broke my leg and can’t go. want the spot?**

Apparently, his cousin had once joined an (incredibly informal) exchange program in which you had to receive a student from a random country and then you could stay at said student’s house in their random country later. Kei doesn’t know who thought it was a good idea, since the only thing that happened in the exchange was that said student didn’t really go to study and simply spent a month running around a foreign city looking confused and not understanding a single word that was said to them, but apparently it was a popular thing. Kei remembers when his cousin had received someone, mostly because Akiteru had gone to visit him and had returned with pictures, food cooked by the foreigner, and the suggestion that Kei might have fun in something like that. Kei had barely glanced at the pictures, scoffed at the idea, and taken a moment to give the food a long, contemplative look of disgust, since it looked like a bunch of leftovers mixed together and had a bigger resemblance to cat vomit than to anything edible.

The cousin had apparently been getting ready for his big trip to the random country ( _Chile_ , Kei reminds himself, _he was going to Chile_ ), but then he’d fallen down some stairs and his parents wouldn’t allow him to travel while he still had the cast on. Still, everything was ready for him to travel, so they’d offered the trip to Kei, by Akiteru’s suggestion.

Kei’s first instinct had been to say no. After looking up the country online, he’d changed his answer to ‘definitely no’, but then Kuroo had texted asking him if he had plans for summer break and he remembered that Yamaguchi had started dating Yachi and that any classmates that might be willing to spend their time with him already had plans, so he’d concluded that the only way to be sure to avoid Kuroo would be by leaving Japan.

“But just two weeks. I have things to do here for university.” He’d lied. He could work anywhere, really, and he was doing well in his classes, but he wasn’t really excited about going to the end of the world. He just wanted some time to think.

The plane was leaving in two weeks, on the same day Kei’s classes ended, and that time was spent making arrangements, rescuing his winter clothes from the depths of his wardrobe, googling the location of every McDonald’s in the city in case it turned out he couldn’t eat anything he was given, and learning some basic sentences, all between the time spent studying. He’d taken some time to drop everything he kept under his bed at Yamaguchi’s dorm, just in case the plane fell or he was killed by a bunch of Chilean delinquents.

“Will you be okay?” Yamaguchi had asked after putting Kei’s (embarrassing, stupid, lovingly put together although he will never admit it) collection of cartoonish toy dinosaurs in his closet.

Kei had shrugged. They’d looked up information about the country together, and apparently there were lots of protests, delinquents, and an ugly conflict in the south. “I don’t know.”

The day before the trip, Kei puts his iPod on shuffle and stares at his suitcase, already prepared and closed.

He looks for Kuroo’s text asking him about his plans for summer break, re-reads it for what might be the fiftieth time since he received it.

“This is pathetic,” he mutters. The words seem to float in the room, empty now that the student he shares it with has gone home.

He kneels next to the suitcase and begins taking everything out and putting it back in his closet, planning his excuse for rejecting the trip at the last minute.

When he’s done, he looks around, sits on the floor and laces his fingers together. He finds Kuroo’s number on his phone and stares at the screen, finger hovering over the ‘Call’ button, but his thoughts are interrupted by a text:

**drinking age in chile is 18**

Kei rolls his eyes after seeing the sender’s name.

**_I’m not going for that, Tanaka._ **

**u have a chance take the chance**

He doesn’t text back. Instead, he packs his clothes again and sends a picture of the suitcase to Tanaka, who tells him to stop bragging.

 

**Track 2:[O.R.I.O.N. – Sandaime J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=747lZF7RHXI)**

Kei had been all for taking a taxi to the airport, or maybe asking Yamaguchi to drive him, but his mother had insisted on accompanying him, and then Akiteru had decided to go too, and then Yamaguchi, who had already offered to drive him, had asked if he could still go, and Yachi had joined too, so now he’s in the backseat of Akiteru’s car, his eyes closed, his head resting on the window as he listens to his mom question Yachi as if she was dating her own son, and Yachi trying to keep her voice calm, with Yamaguchi intervening in the conversation to keep it relaxed and easy. Kei doesn’t need to look to know that Yamaguchi’s holding Yachi’s hand, and he’s also fairly sure that Yamaguchi is aware that he’s just pretending to be sleeping, if only because they’d stayed at each other’s house enough times for Yamaguchi to know it takes him a long time to fall asleep.

Akiteru probably knows too, but he’s keeping himself out of the conversation, humming along to what’s playing on the radio.

He has to pretend to wake up when his phone starts beeping. There are five messages from Tanaka, wishing him a good flight, to remind him of the drinking age in Chile, telling him to go find girls at the beach, to let him know if there are good volleyball teams over there, and telling him he should make the most of his two weeks.

There’s also a text from Kuroo wishing him a safe trip.

‘ **_It’s winter there. It’ll be 12 days. Travelling takes 2._ ** ’ he writes to Tanaka.

He doesn’t write back to Kuroo.

Tanaka’s reply is a sad emoticon.

 

**Track 3:[Gold – Imagine Dragons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl3ELiPXFRo)**

There are no direct flights from Japan to Chile.

There’s a discarded magazine from another airplane in the waiting room, so Kei skims through it until he reaches the “In-flight music” section, finds the nearest electrical socket, logs into the airport’s Wi-Fi and opens Youtube, ready to spend the next four hours until the plane from France to Chile departs pretending he’s on a plane to anywhere else and convincing himself he does not regret his life choices from the last three months, and especially the ones from the last month.

‘ **_I’m bored out of my mind._ ** ’ he writes to Yamaguchi as the first song from the magazine’s list starts playing, and deletes the message without sending it when it ends.

 

**Track 4:[Inteligencia Dormida – Pedropiedra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku9OsY6twxM)**

He lands in Chile around 8 am local time, which means it’s 8 pm in Japan.

His body’s stiff, his lower back hurts, every single joint in his body feels like it’s been covered in concrete and creaks when he moves, and he’d kill for a bed. Or at least throw volleyballs at people’s heads.

The line at customs is longer than Kei had expected, it’s noisy, there are too many people running around, trying to find their luggage, and his backpack feels heavier with each passing second, the straps digging into his shoulders and adding to his discomfort.

When he finally reaches the waiting area, he lets himself slump over his suitcase. It’s still noisy, even more than before, the universal sounds of joy at meeting a loved one after a while apart surrounding him, and he catches himself before he can take his phone out of his pocket.

Kei scans the crowd trying to find the girl he’d seen in his cousin’s pictures, and his eyes are drawn to a waving hand and a piece of paper with “Kei Tsukishima” written on it on black marker, both of them belonging to a human-shaped figure that might be the person he’s looking for, but which could perfectly well be an eighty years old man, since they’re wearing a long dark blue coat, white gloves, a white scarf and a white wool hat that cover pretty much all of the person’s distinguishable features.

He approaches the figure slowly and the scarf is lowered to let him see a very white face, with flushed cheeks, chapped lips and green eyes, which matches what Kei had seen of the student that had visited Japan a couple of years ago.

“Kei?” she asks, lowering her hand and smiling.

“Marcela?” Kei says, nodding.

“Yes!” she replies, her accent somehow permeating the single English syllable. They stand there, looking at each other and not saying a word for a long moment during which her smile becomes stiff. “So… uh… we should… get going?”

“Probably,” Kei says.

She raises an eyebrow. “Right… Do you have anything warmer than that?” she says, pointing at the sweater Kei’s wearing.

“I have a coat.”

“Put it on.”

Kei stares at her, but she just crosses her arms and watches him. He takes the coat out of his backpack, puts it on and starts walking towards the exit, ignoring the tired sigh she lets out.

Marcela tries to talk as they walk to the car, questions about the flight, about whether he wants to take a nap or not, but Kei doesn’t make any efforts to keep the conversation alive, busier trying to keep his fingers warm.

It’s a blessing to get into the car, a green mini Cooper, since at least it takes him out of the freezing air, and it has the added bonus of amusing him when Marcela turns on the engine and starts awkwardly maneuvering to remove her coat without taking off her scarf and gloves and without bumping her elbow against the window. He snickers when her hand gets stuck on one of the sleeves, and again he receives the raised eyebrow.

Then she takes off one glove and throws it at him, and she’s the one snickering.

“Yuusuke warned me about you,” she says as she turns on the car’s heating.

“Really? What did he say?” Kei asks, slightly curious even though he already knows. His cousin had told him he’d talked to his Chilean friend about him, and hadn’t tried to hide any parts of the conversation from him.

“That you’re kind of mean.” He’d said more things, but apparently Marcela wouldn’t share the rest of the conversation.

“Must be a disappointment to have me here instead of him.”

“I have a mean friend, I can deal with you. And as for Yuusuke, he can come later. I mean, I don’t mind you being here! It’s nice to have you here! I just mean that, well, nothing happens if it takes him a bit longer to visit me.” She sighs and smirks. “The bad movies and the alcohol won’t go anywhere.”

“What?” He frowns and stares, and her smirk turns into a grin.

“That was the plan. We’d watch terrible movies and celebrate that we’re both of drinking age here by getting cheap beer and boxed wine.”

“What kind of plan is that?”

“The kind friends that spent their previous time together watching terrible movies and eating cheap snacks make, of course. You’ve never done anything like that?”

“No,” Kei replies. He’s seen documentaries and good movies (he makes sure they’re good, life is too short to waste it on bad films) with Yamaguchi, and there have been movie nights with the team that have involved some absolutely terrible films, and he’s spent far more hours of his life than he’s willing to admit watching horrible films with Kuroo, which is probably similar to what Marcela’s talking about, except he hadn’t really been thinking about the movies and the snacks during those hours.

“You’ve missed on half your life,” Marcela says, chuckling.

Kei raises an eyebrow and they go silent. He watches the car’s radio intently, willing it to turn on by itself and give him a distraction. Marcela’s the one to turn it on instead, fumbling with the buttons because she hasn’t removed her right glove yet.

“Do you like music?” she asks as she settles on a station.

Kei shrugs and makes an ambiguous movement with his head, easy to be interpreted as either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. It’s a dumb question. People might not care about music, but there probably isn’t a single person out there who actually dislikes it.

She purses her lips, turns up the volume, and finally gets them out of the airport, muttering the song’s lyrics.

 

**Track 5: ~~Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke~~ [Happy – Pharrell Williams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM)**

Marcela seems to know every single song on the radio. She’d stopped muttering and had started outright singing by the time they’d reached the highway, smirking at him whenever she caught him giving her a displeased look.

Kei is torn between asking her if she has an iTunes library he can browse later and begging her to shut up, when she slams her finger into the ‘seek station’ button just when a new song’s starting.

“I fucking hate that fucking song,” she says, with too much force and with pure revulsion on her face.

It’s a sudden, strange change from the distracted, happy singing from earlier, and it makes Kei move slightly away from her and watch her cautiously.

“Sorry, I just… hate it! A lot! It’s horrible! And this one isn’t that much better because they keep playing it everywhere and I’m sick of it… but I don’t hate it like the other one!”

Marcela turns to look at him and seems to take his confusion as an invitation to explain herself, because she launches into a tirade about the first song’s lyrics, what they mean, and the message they give, and at some point Kei finds himself commenting as well and naming some songs he thinks have the same faults, and then they somehow start discussing the evolution of the ‘lust song’ (“You know, those songs where you know the singer’s thinking with their dick.”). Before he notices, she’s stopping the car in front of an apartment complex and announcing they’ve arrived, and he actually laments the conversation ending.

 

**Track 6:[Politik - Coldplay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHlYLt7Vt2c)**

The apartment’s huge, as is the room Kei’s led into, or maybe that’s the impression it gives him because it only contains a bed, a nightstand and a TV, all put on one side of the room.

“This was my sister’s room, but she moved out and, well,” Marcela says, gesturing towards all the empty space in the room, “we’ve never had a reason to furnish it appropriately. We never have guests.”

“I can tell,” Kei says, putting his luggage next to the bed. There’s a pile of blankets on top of it, and they all look to be the scratchy kind.

Marcela clicks her tongue.

“Anyway,” she says, shrugging, “my parents’ room is at the end of the hallway. Mine’s the one right in front of yours,” she says, pointing towards her door. “My mom will be home around five, and my dad around seven or eight. They want to take you to have dinner in a restaurant, since it’s your first night. Anything you’d like to eat?”

“Something that looks edible,” Kei says, looking around him at the empty walls.

“Yeah, Akiteru told me you didn’t like the charquicán much.”

Kei takes a second to decide which part of that sentence confuses him more. He opts to start with the simpler thing: “Char-kee-kan?”

“What I made when I went to Japan? Your brother took some with him? He told me you didn’t even try it,” she says, reproaching.

“You’ve been talking to my brother?” It scares him a bit that this girl has talked with at least two of his relatives about him.

“We became Facebook friends after we met… You know, it really pissed me off that you wouldn’t try what I made just ‘cause it looked ugly. Seriously? Your country has us eating raw fish and you won’t eat some corn and meat and carrots mixed together?”

“It looked horrible.” He’s still studying the walls. There’s a mysterious stain next to the TV.

“I’m making you eat it on this trip. I promise on my CD collection.”

That makes Kei actually look at her.

“You have a CD collection?”

“No,” Marcela says, quickly.

Kei points at her.

“You have a CD collection,” he says, incredulous.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do people still buy CDs?”

“I told you I don’t have a CD collection.”

“They’re a waste of space. And you get more bonus buying digital.” His tone is judging, but he’s still curious about it.

“I like to touch, okay?” she says, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“Oh, you like to touch?” He tilts his head to the side and smirks. Kuroo would probably enjoy this part of the conversation.

“Objects! Boxes and CDs and… I meant normal things, not anything weird or…!” she’s blushing, her words poorly enunciated and her accent thicker than before.

She lowers her head, lets out a huff and grabs Kei’s arm, pulling him towards her room.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll torture you for making me say something weird,” she says, letting go of him to kneel in front of her bed and reach for something under it.

Her room contains, asides from the bed, nightstand and TV, a closet, a desk, and a bookshelf with some books, but which is mostly occupied by a stereo and lots of CDs, piled together in a way that doesn’t leave any free space.

“Aren’t you supposed to be nineteen years old?” Kei says when he sees that Marcela has pulled out three plastic containers full of CDs from under the bed. It’s kind of impressive. “How do you own so many CDs?”

“It’s my only hobby.”

“That’s just sad.”

“I don’t mean it like that!” She starts blushing again. “I mean… ah!” She bites her lip and then smirks. “Wait, are you feeling sad for me? Are you starting to care already?”

He doesn’t bother acknowledging her words. “I’m going to take a nap.”

“Oh, no, no you aren’t! I’m going to torture you!” Marcela opens one of the containers and starts taking out its contents. “As soon as I find what I need.”

“Will you find it any time soon?” Kei yawns theatrically and crosses his arms. “I’ve been travelling for over thirty hours.”

“Oh, that’s true…” She stops going through the CD boxes and looks up at him. “Okay, go to sleep. I’ll torture you when you wake up.” She nods, grabs a CD at random and walks to her stereo.

Kei goes back to his room and closes the door, reaches for his phone to text home and finds a text from Kuroo asking him if he’s arrived to Chile. He reads Kuroo’s text a couple of times and closes his eyes, tries to put his thoughts in order.

He texts home first: **_I’m here. I’m fine._ **

He thinks for a moment, checks the time (11:45 am local time), and sends a picture of the room to Yamaguchi.

‘ **_Already settled. Days left: 12_ ** ’. he adds to the picture.

**you got your own room, tsukki? great!**

**_And I’m not sleeping on the floor._ **

**ヾ(@^▽^@)ノ**

From Marcela’s room come the first notes of a song. He barely hears it.

Just because he can, he sends the picture of the room to Tanaka as well.

The apartment’s cold and Marcela hasn’t turned on any kind of heating, so he puts all the blankets on the bed and gets into it without changing out of his travelled-in clothes.

' **_i’m here_ ** ' he writes to Kuroo, and turns off his phone before he can send it.

 

**Track 7:[Humanos A Marte – Chayanne feat. Yandel ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb3LBA-XrWk)**

Kei wakes up sweating and assaulted by the smell of meat being cooked. His phone tells him it’s only been two hours since he went to bed, and that there are six messages from Tanaka.

**thats ur room?! it looks colder than ur soul**

**u should buy a poster**

**did u bring pictures with u?**

**do they let u put things on the wall**

**im talkin to you punk!**

**pay attention to me!**

He reads the messages twice before deciding what to reply.

**_I’m not buying posters for 12 days._ **

He leaves his phone charging, regulates the room’s heater, and follows the smell of food to the kitchen.

The radio’s on and Marcela’s muttering the lyrics to the song. When she sees him at the door, she smiles and starts singing normally as she cooks.

“If you want to take a shower,” she says when the song reaches a part that sounds like the singer’s howling, or whining about something, “the bathroom’s the door right next to my room. Lunch should be ready in… fifteen minutes? I hope. You eat meat, right? I made a lot of salads if you don’t.”

“It’s fine,” Kei says, approaching the table to see the salads laid there. There are five small bowls, each of them containing a different mix of vegetables. He frowns a bit at one that contains tomatoes and onions. “Isn’t that one supposed to include some lettuce?”

“Nope. We call it Chilean salad,” Marcela says, reaching for an onion slice and nibbling it. “Not recommended for first dates or important meetings.”

Kei takes the shower, doesn’t touch the Chilean salad, and sends a picture of all the food to his mother, to let her know he’s eating well, and after some thinking, he sends it to Yamaguchi, who’ll probably be glad to know he didn’t need all the McDonald’s addresses.

Before leaving for dinner, he sends the picture to Tanaka, with the following words: **_She made me lunch._ **

 

**Track 8:[El Teléfono – Hector "El Father" feat. Wisin y Yandel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2YgNCjzBSA)**

The dinner with Marcela’s parents had gone well. They’d talked to him in broken English and made some mentions of Japanese culture that had clearly come from Miyazaki films and which had made Marcela sink into her seat and shove food into her mouth at an amazing speed as she turned red. They’d been kind and easy-going, and Kei had been careful to keep his mouth shut.

Back in the apartment, Marcela had thanked him and patted his back, and then she’d whispered, “I’m still torturing you tomorrow.”

Kei had rolled his eyes, made a comment along the lines of ‘Yes, sure’ and gone to bed.

The next morning, when he enters the kitchen to get breakfast, he finds Marcela’s stereo on top of the table and her sitting next to it, grinning in a way that reminds Kei of the Cheshire Cat.

“I got up at six just for this,” she says, pressing ‘Play’, and the worst song Kei has heard in his life starts.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kei murmurs, reaching forward to turn it off, but Marcela practically throws herself on top of the stereo.

“You can help yourself to anything that’s in the fridge,” she says, hugging the speakers and still grinning in an infuriating way.

“Are you expecting to create a welcoming environment this way?” Kei doesn’t move from his spot, just narrows his eyes.

“No, I’m trying to befriend you.”

“Through terrible music and not letting me eat?”

“You can grab and cook whatever you want!”

“That music killed my appetite.”

“There are worse ones,” Marcela says quietly, barely audible under the song, but she turns off the stereo anyway.

“Did you pay for that CD?”

“A friend gave it to me when she decided she was too good for this kind of music. She was going to throw it away and then decided to give it to me because, in her words, I don’t have standards.”

“That’s sad too.” Kei takes out some eggs, and approaches the stove. “Where are the pans?”

“Under the sink. Hey, can you make extra? I haven’t eaten yet… I’ll make you toast and coffee in exchange.”

“You got up three hours ago and haven’t had breakfast?”

“I was waiting for you. Eating alone is pretty sad, don’t you think?” She’s looking pensively at him, chin propped on her hands, body still on top of the stereo.

Kei takes a moment to answer. Kuroo had said something similar once, when Kei had found him waiting for him outside his classroom to go get lunch together, despite Kuroo’s morning classes having ended at least an hour ago.

“Is this also part of your attempt at friendship?”

“There’s always room for more friends.” She shrugs and finally stands up, patting the stereo like one would a pet.

Kei doesn’t know if he’s supposed to reply to that, or if he wants to, so he just opens the fridge, takes out a couple more eggs and turns on the stove, while Marcela sets the table and makes toast.

He checks his phone as they eat, finds texts from Tanaka asking him who “she” is. He can’t help but smirk at that.

When he raises his eyes, he finds Marcela watching him.

“Text from a friend?”

“No. It’s…” Kei stops to search for the right word. ‘Senpai’ isn’t accurate anymore, like ‘teammate’. He could use the word ‘friend’, even if it probably isn’t true, but he doesn’t want to give anything that might seem even remotely personal to Marcela. “Just an acquaintance,” he says, the word so unrelated to whatever Tanaka is that he feels uncomfortable.

“Okay.” Marcela shrugs and keeps eating.

 

**Track 9:[Let It Go – Idina Menzel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU) **

Two days after arriving, Kei gets to see Marcela’s CD collection, and it turns out that ‘impressive’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

There’s a bit of everything, from movie scores to opera, from American boy bands from the 90s to relatively new k-pop bands, German hip-hop and religious songs in Latin. Most of what is in the boxes are bootlegs, but there are also some deluxe editions of important albums that Kei is almost afraid to touch.

“Picture,” he says without thinking, too overwhelmed by admiration. For the first time in his life, Kei thinks he understands how Tanaka felt when he looked at Shimizu.

“Can I appear in it?” Marcela says.

“…okay.”

In the picture, Marcela’s standing in the middle of her room, surrounded by all her CDs and proudly holding the box of the one that she’d just put on. Kei sends it to Tanaka without text.

Tanaka complains that Kei gets to spend time with a cute girl that cooks for him, and Kei lets him know that she has a boyfriend.

 

**Track 10:[Travesuras – Nicky Jam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxxggwHFj7M)**

Marcela takes Kei CD shopping on the third day, and uses it as an excuse to make him meet her boyfriend.

The guy’s shorter than Kei (which really isn’t that surprising), has black hair that he keeps on a ponytail, black eyes, and tanned skin, and he looks at Marcela the same way Yamaguchi and Yachi look at each other: as if each of their cells were actually a star, all of them put together to create a creature of pure light, absolute beauty and perfection.

The worst part is that Marcela looks at him in the same way, so Kei thinks he might get diabetes if he spends too long around them.

“This is Sergio,” Marcela says, pointing at her boyfriend, who shakes Kei’s hand firmly. “Sergio, this is Kei.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sergio says, almost no hint of an accent in his voice, and with a tone that sounds sincere.

They take a bus to the city centre and spend the day walking around, comparing prices, haggling, and giving Kei a quick class on how to survive in the city, both of them talking quickly and not leaving any pauses for Kei to ask questions.

“You come from a first world country,” Marcela says, grabbing his arm when they’re about to cross the street. He shakes her off, but Sergio puts his hand on his shoulder and forces Kei to stay next to him as they walk. “Chile’s gotta be like the jungle to you. So, first lesson. If your wallet’s in your pocket, put your hand there. Don’t carry anything valuable in plain sight.”

“Don’t shake hands with strangers. Don’t accept anything from strangers.”

“Don’t talk to strangers, really. A classmate was drugged and almost got kidnapped that way.”

“If anyone calls you ‘hijo de puta’, they’re insulting you,” Sergio says, his voice soft. “Same if they call you a ‘conchetumare’. Or ‘conchetumadre’. Or ‘concha de tu madre’. Those are ugly insults. Same with ‘maricón’. That’s a particularly nasty one.”

“No one understands the bus system, so if you get lost, find a cop.”

Before getting the bus back to Marcela’s apartment, they stop at a bakery and buy six pastries that look like a long piece of twisted, slightly orange dough with a hole in the center, covered in powdered sugar. It’s sweet and a bit dry, and it takes Kei a long time to finish his, since he has to take small bites so as not to feel like he’s choking. All in all, the experience itself is unpleasant, but the taste makes him reach for a second pastry when they get on the bus.

Marcela smiles widely at that, laughs a bit, and Sergio looks pleased. Kei just bites into the food and looks away from them, then takes out his phone to take a picture of it.

“What’s this called?” he asks.

“Calzones rotos,” she says, dusting powdered sugar off her coat and walking towards some empty seats. “I swear I’m not making that up.”

“What do you mean with that?”

“It translates as ‘ripped panties’. Or ‘torn panties’? Maybe ‘broken panties’?” Sergio says, seating next to Marcela.

“Anyway, panties,” Marcela says. “Like the underwear. Or maybe it meant something different before? Who knows, who cares.” She makes a face and leans back.

Kei looks at the confection in his hand and keeps eating. Marcela takes out her phone and snaps a picture of him.

The ride is silent. Sergio just sinks into his seat, closes his eyes and lets his head rest on Marcela’s shoulder, while she looks out the window and hums the songs that play on the bus’ radio. 

Kei watches them.

Marcela’s hair is light brown, light enough to pass as blonde under poor lightning, and she keeps it in a pixie cut. It contrasts nicely against her boyfriend’s black hair, and Kei entertains, for just a second, the thought that he and Kuroo could be like that someday.

 

**Track 11:[Chiquillada – Leonardo Favio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqIdaK3F-5M)**

Kei checks his phone before getting into bed, sends Yamaguchi a picture of the CDs he bought that day, and of the ‘calzón roto’ with the added words ‘Chileans are weird.’, then sends Tanaka a picture or Marcela and Sergio on the bus back to her apartment. There are no texts from Kuroo. 

There’s a knock on the door, even though it’s open, and Kei raises his eyes from the phone’s screen to find Marcela leaning against the doorframe, already in her pajamas.

“My friend Beatriz called. She wants to give you a proper welcome.”

“What does that mean?”

“Going to her apartment tomorrow night to drink and laugh and talk and I won’t be allowed to pick the music. It’ll be fun!”

“Sounds like a disaster.”

“It might be a disaster in the good way. In the ‘friends having good fun together’ way! Come on, what do you say?”

He looks at the phone in his hands, checks his messages again – still nothing from Kuroo – and shrugs.

“Okay.”

Kei makes a deal with himself: he will go with Marcela to his ‘welcome’ and he won’t check his phone until it’s over.

 

**Track 12:[El Señor De La Noche – Don Omar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkldbRJphn0)**

If Kei ever needed to describe Beatriz in one word, he’d say ‘big’: barely a couple centimeters shorter than him, big eyes, big nose, big smile, big breasts, big waist, big hips… everything about her was big.

“Kei, right?” Beatriz says, loudly, kissing his cheek as greeting. Kei cringes mentally at the use of his first name, but she’s already moved on to Marcela, both of them laughing and speaking quickly in Spanish.

Beatriz leads them towards the living room, where Sergio and another guy about their age are playing solitaire on the floor, the unknown person holding a beer bottle. Beatriz claps to get their attention, points to Kei and grins. “They’re here! This is Kei. Kei, I’ve been told you’ve met Sergio.” Said boy raises his hand to greet him, smiles at him warmly, maybe genuinely glad to see Kei again, and then his eyes go to Marcela and his whole demeanor changes, body relaxing, eyes bright, hand extended and Marcela’s already walking forward to take it and sit next to him.

“I’m so sorry for you, Kei,” Beatriz says, turning towards Kei with a sympathetic look on her face. “They’re sickening.”

“Are you going to introduce me or will I have to do it myself?” the other guy calls, annoyance in his voice.

He’s well-built, with dark skin and dark brown hair, thin lips and a small, straight nose. He crosses his arms and Beatriz claps a couple of times as she apologizes.

“That’s Juan Pablo, but we all call him Juampi. You should too, or it’ll sound weird.”

“Who-ahm-pee?” Kei says, the word sounding far too cute for his taste and for the pissed-off looking guy staring at him.

Kei stares back, and they might have stayed like that for an hour if Marcela hadn’t reached to smack the back of Juampi’s head.

“Be nice. We just got here,” she says before returning to her boyfriend’s solitaire game.

Juampi sighs, stands up and walks towards Kei, watches him for a long moment before huffing and extending his hand.

“Nice to meet you. Maybe.”

“Same,” Kei says, shaking his hand, and that earns him a smirk from the other boy.

“Let’s leave the happy couple alone before I throw up,” Juampi says, walking towards a door.

Kei isn’t eager to follow him, but when he looks at Marcela and Sergio, with her practically on his lap and in charge of the cards, Sergio playing with her hair while telling her which cards to move, he leaves the room as fast as he can without running.

The door leads to the kitchen. By the time he crosses the threshold, Juampi has already left two closed beer cans on top of the kitchen table and is downing the contents of the bottle he’d carried from the living room.

“Are they always like that?” Kei asks, sitting on a stool.

“At least they’re not making out,” Beatriz says, taking out her cellphone and putting a song on the speakers that makes both Kei and Juampi grimace.

“It’s nauseating,” Juampi mutters into his bottle. “Also kind of envy-inducing.”

Beatriz nods, opens a can and hands it to Kei.

Kei takes it and studies it. The weight of his phone in his pocket reminds him of what had happened the previous time he’d drunk. It also reminds him that there are still some hours left before he can allow himself to check for messages.

“Fuck this,” Kei says, earning confused looks from the other two, and starts drinking.

 

**Track 13:[Blame – Calvin Harris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ACl8s_tBzE)**

It’s at Kei’s third beer that he gives into temptation and checks his phone. There are messages from Akiteru, Tanaka and Yamaguchi, and one from Kuroo, a selfie with Bokuto and Akaashi in some beach, and the words ‘ **wish u were here** ’.

 _No, you don’t_ , Kei thinks, gripping his phone tighter and putting it on the table with the screen facing down.

He tries to focus on what the others are talking about, tries to keep Kuroo’s selfie out of his mind, tries not to think about the sun shining on Kuroo’s hair, about his stupid face and his stupid, confident, satisfied smirk.

He finishes his beer, reaches for his phone and takes a picture of the empty cans. He sends it to Tanaka and Bokuto and gets another can.

 

**Track 14:[Safe and Sound – Capital Cities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dtFZ8CFo8)**

Counting this time, Kei has drunk alcohol a grand total of three times in his life, has been drunk twice and has needed to throw up once.

The first time he’d drunk had been after graduation, an almost empty stolen bottle shared with Yamaguchi because they were going to different universities and needed to do something to commemorate their last hours as classmates.

The second time he’d drunk, and also the first time he’d gotten drunk, had been a month ago, at a house party. Kuroo had been there, smirking with his stupid, confident, satisfied face, and Kei had felt pissed off all of a sudden. He was angry because they were in the same university, because during the first weeks of class they’d kept bumping into each other, because after the fifth accidental meeting they’d started getting coffee while waiting for their respective classes to start, because one day Kei’s roommate had brought his girlfriend over during lunchtime and Kei had ended up going to the apartment Kuroo shared with Kenma for lunch and had stayed there studying until dinner, because at some point Kuroo had decided Kei was his friend and had kept inviting him whenever he made plans with other people, and sometimes he only invited Kei and they watched terrible action films in the cinema and low-budget sci-fi movies in Kuroo’s laptop, and they looked up recipes online and tried to decide whether it would be a good idea or not to try to use Kuroo’s stove after two years in which it had been pretty much a decorative object, used only to re-heat take-out and food sent by his mother, and at some point Kei had started wondering if Kuroo was trying to get somewhere, and he hadn’t known how to tell him that he could get somewhere, that he’d really like for them to get somewhere, but that the somewhere Kei was willing to get to wouldn’t be, would never be, as far as Kuroo probably wanted.

Kei had needed a place to clear his head, and he’d gone to that party to drown himself in the noise and the music and the lack of Kuroo. Unable to do that, he’d done the next thing that had seemed reasonable, which had been to grab the nearest alcoholic beverage and down it in one go. And the next one. And the one after that.

Kei’s still regretting that night, but he refuses to replay it in his head as he barfs, hands gripping the toilet like a lifesaver while Sergio rubs his back and offers words of comfort in Spanish and Juampi gives him water to wash his mouth.

He can hear Marcela and Beatriz arguing outside the bathroom, apparently about him, judging by the few words he can make out of their screamed Spanish, and Beatriz’s phone still playing music.

 

**Track 15:[Chorizo Hampón – Frijoles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKI0oKtsh9w)**

“Va a estar pa’ la cagá mañana,” whispers Juampi, looking at Kei, who’s leaning against the bathtub with his eyes closed.

Kei hates everyone, starting with himself for drinking, and continuing with Beatriz for offering him the first beer.

“¿Y si le damos un mariscal?” whispers Beatriz.

“¿De dónde chucha sacamos un mariscal?” snaps Marcela.

“Vamos a necesitar como quince mariscales pa’ esto,” says Sergio, who’s sitting next to Kei, matter-of-factly.

“¿De Valparaíso?” Juampi says.

“Claro, como es tan fácil irse a Valparaíso,” Marcela says, voice full of sarcasm.

“Oye, en verdad sí es fácil,” Sergio says.

“Oye, sí,” says Beatriz. “¿Vayamos a Valpo?”

“¿Querrá ir?” Marcela says doubtfully after a pause.

Kei can feel all their eyes on him, waits for translation.

“Hey, Kei?” Marcela says. “How do you feel about going to the beach tomorrow? I mean, in the morning. For a couple of days. My parents have a house!”

Kei opens one eye, sees her offering him an apologetic smile. He thinks about Kuroo in the beach, the sun and the heat, and thinks what it’ll be like in Chile, in the middle of winter, too cold and windy to even consider approaching the shore.

“Whatever,” he says.

 

**Track 16:[Obsesión – Aventura](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaVnA88oNTg)**

They nap until 6 am on the couches in Beatriz’s living room, and Kei wakes up with the worst headache of his life.

' **_I hate this fucking country_ ** ', he writes to Yamaguchi.

**_My head’s killing me_ **

**_Fucking beer_ **

**_Fucking Chileans_ **

**_Fuck this country_ **

No one else is hungover, but no one else looks good either, except for Beatriz, who looks like a candidate for Miss Universe, not a hair out of place, smile on her face and voice too loud as she passes them coffee and toast.

“How…” mutters Kei, looking at her.

“I’m a happy person,” she says, grinning and patting his hand.

“Also, this is her house. She slept in a bed and she’s the only one who understands how the shower works,” Juampi says, eyeing his piece of toast like it’s going to bite him.

Beatriz has a bag ready by the door by the time they leave the house. Her car’s an old white Nissan Primera that makes Kei cringe inwardly as soon as he sees the space between the front and the back seat.

“You go in front,” Beatriz says, opening the driver’s door.

“Why?”

“You’re too tall,” Juampi says, pointing at Kei’s legs.

“Putting you in the back seat would be cruel,” Sergio adds, opening a door for Marcela.

They go to everyone’s houses to collect clothes and let everyone shower, and it’s almost 9am by the time they reach Marcela’s apartment. After that, Kei falls asleep. He wakes up for a moment when Beatriz turns on the radio, but then she lowers the volume and he falls asleep again.

 

**Track 17:[La Joya Del Pacífico – Lucho Barrios](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4pBnyYaCoc)**

Kei’s woken up when the car stops. He keeps his eyes closed and waits as Beatriz’s door opens and is softly closed.

Some minutes pass and all Kei hears is some shuffling in the backseat. Then Beatriz’s door opens and closes again and something’s put on Kei’s lap, startling him.

“Good morning,” Beatriz whispers, smiling at him. “Sorry for that, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Kei looks at his legs to find a Kinder Surprise egg. He turns to find Marcela’s holding one as well, and that the guys are still asleep.

“I needed a snack,” Beatriz says, leaving two more eggs on the ashtray.

“Are we there already?” Kei whispers, looking around. They’re at a gas station by the road, no cities in sight.

“There’s some time left,” Marcela says, crushing the egg without peeling off the wrapper.

Kei carefully takes off the candy’s wrapper, trying to keep it whole. He smirks in satisfaction when he succeeds, looks up and glares at Beatriz when she chuckles.

She’s bringing a piece of chocolate to her mouth and she shakes her head softly.

“I’ve never been able to do that. The damn wrapper always tears before I can get it off.”

“I’ve never even tried,” Marcela says.

They eat in silence, with Sergio’s snores for background noise. Kei doesn’t check the surprise, just puts the plastic capsule in his coat pocket.

“We should put on ‘La Joya del Pacífico’ and give Kei the whole Valparaíso experience,” Beatriz says when she’s finished her chocolate, putting the car in motion.

“They’ll wake up,” Marcela says, pointing towards the still sleeping boys.

“What are friends for?” Beatriz replies, smirking.

Marcela taps at her phone for a moment. Kei isn’t ready for when the song starts playing. It’s loud and the singer’s so out of key that Kei makes a face, but Marcela’s already singing along, and so is Beatriz, and then Sergio sort of wakes up and starts muttering the lyrics between yawns while Juampi curses and glares before joining the singing as well.

Kei takes out his phone and records them, despite Juampi’s protests and Marcela’s bouts of laughter whenever she so much as glances at the camera.

He sends the video to Tanaka, because there’s something in the whole gesture that reminds Kei of him.

 

**Track 18:[La Consentida – Chilean cueca](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6PJTGA-i8)**

Valparaíso ends up being a port city built mostly on hills, with dirty streets, graffiti on the walls and some people of suspicious appearance walking the streets. Kei checks the car’s lock whenever they stop at a streetlight.

Marcela’s house is on a nice hill, at least. The streets are still a bit dirty, but there are many shops, less graffiti on the walls, and most of the people walking around look like tourists, making the area seem welcoming and warm despite the freezing air.

After leaving their bags, they start the walk to the city. Kei doesn’t like the idea of going up and down the hills by foot, but he’s dragged into a side alley and to a post from which a cable car going up and down the slope carries people.

“Your first elevator ride, make a wish!” Marcela says, gesturing for Kei to enter the cabin.

Kei eyes the transport dubiously. It’s old and probably not stable enough, but Juampi pushes him inside and he has no time to complain or worry about dying without fixing things with Kuroo.

“We need a picture of this,” Beatriz says, taking out her phone. She stands by Kei’s side and he looks away from the camera as she takes a selfie.

Once at sea level, they enter a small restaurant that only has five tables and sit down, chatting about the elevators and how appropriate the name is.

Kei’s headache has been reduced to a dull pain that makes it hard to focus, so he ignores the conversation and checks his phone.

There are at least fifteen messages from Yamaguchi, each more frantic than the previous one, asking him how he’s doing, if he’s okay, what happened, Tsukki, and a lot of home recipes for hangovers. There’s also a text from Yachi with a recipe, and one from Tanaka asking him how he survived the singing.

He snickers at that, bringing everyone’s attention to him.

“Your acquaintance again?” Marcela asks, narrowing her eyes slightly and smirking with a hint of malice.

“Is that code for ‘girlfriend’?” Juampi says, wearing an expression identical to Marcela’s.

“No, it isn’t,” Kei says, putting his phone on the table and glaring. “And yes, it’s him.”

“I’m curious about him,” Marcela says, tone too innocent to be believable. “Do you have a picture?”

Kei shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, check your phone!” Marcela says, and Beatriz makes a begging gesture.

Kei goes through his phone and finds a picture from the last time the old volleyball club got together.

“That’s him,” he says, pointing at Tanaka, who’d picked that moment to do a rude gesture at the camera.

There’s a pause as everyone’s eyes scan the picture. Then: “Is that Buddha? He looks like Buddha.”

“That one looks like Jesus,” Sergio says, looking over Beatriz’s shoulder and pointing at the picture. Kei doesn’t need to look to know who he’s looking at.

“You went to school with Buddha and Jesus?” Juampi tells Kei, who’s trying very hard not to think it’s funny.

“If you’re texting them from the other side of the world, they’re your friends. That’s, like, a basic of friendship,” Beatriz says.

Kei doesn’t know what to tell her, just looks at Tanaka’s text again and shakes his head.

The food arrives, a bunch of shells floating on a plate of soup, and the smell makes Kei forget for a moment about anything that isn’t eating.

He burns his palate with the first spoonful, but it tastes so good that waiting for it cool makes him anxious.

“This is a ‘mariscal’,” Juampi says, with a tone of superiority. “The ultimate hangover killer.”

“Really?” Kei says, dubiously, and remembers Yamaguchi’s texts. “Fuck.”

The others watch him as he grabs his phone and takes a picture of his plate before texting that he’s fine, that his hangover’s gone (that’s a lie, but what Yamaguchi doesn’t know can’t hurt him), and thanking him for the advice.

“What was that?” Juampi asks when Kei puts his phone away.

“A friend kept sending me hangover remedies.”

“A friend? Not an acquaintance?” Marcela says, smirking again.

Kei gives her a sideways glance.

“I’ve known him for years.”

“Really? What’s his name?”

“Yamaguchi.”

“That’s a last name, right? What do you call him?”

“Yamaguchi.”

“Wait,” Beatriz says, eyes wide. “He’s your friend and you call him by his last name? You met us yesterday and you call us by your names!”

“He hasn’t used our names even once,” Juampi points out.

“Okay, no, but maybe he would have later! Poor guy! Your friend! You should use his name!” Beatriz points an accusing finger at Kei, who returns his attention to his food.

“It’s fine,” he says, but he feels a bit guilty.

 

**Track 19:[La Rosa Con El Clavel – Chilean cueca](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Deg1bYTq5Q)**

A text from Kuroo arrives as they’re finishing lunch.

**tell me u drank water with all that**

Kei frowns at that. Another text arrives.

**ur supposed 2 drink water 2 avoid hangovers**

Kei doesn’t know if he should sarcastically thank him for giving him the information too late, or genuinely thank him for the future reference.

' **_i’m never drinking again. nothing good comes from it_ ** ' he writes instead. He hits sends and hates himself for the wording of the message.

At least his hangover’s gone.

 

**Track 20:[Para Bajarte El Calentamiento – Jadiel ft. Franco el Gorila](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1MMC9aUOVw)**

The two days at Valparaíso pass quickly. They eat seafood for dinner and lunch, and seafood empanadas as mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, and Kei is sure his pants don’t fit him right anymore, but the others give him food all the time and he suspects it has something to do with Marcela’s idea of friendship.

Kuroo hasn’t texted again, but Yamaguchi has, telling him off for drinking irresponsibly. Kei debates for half an hour whether to apologize or not, feels ridiculous for taking so long to do the right thing, and texts Yamaguchi promising him he’s never drinking again, and Yachi to apologize for worrying her.

The night before leaving, they go to a club. The music’s similar to the song Marcela had used to “torture” him some days ago, the air’s hot and the floor’s sticky with spilled alcohol. Some things are the same everywhere.

Marcela and Sergio disappear into the dancing crowd after agreeing to meet at the door at five am, and Juampi’s gone before Kei fully processes what’s happening.

“I THINK HE SAW SOMEONE HE LIKED,” Beatriz yells into Kei’s ear. “DO YOU WANT ME TO STAY WITH YOU?”

“I’M FINE,” Kei yells back, gesturing towards the crowd, and walks away, wondering if he has enough battery in his phone to play until five, but then a girl, maybe his age, maybe a bit older, with dark hair that can be any color from black to red, puts a hand on his shoulder and starts dancing with him, around him, grinding against him when the music’s slower, putting some distance between them when the music’s fast to let him see the way she moves.

Kei doesn’t really dance, he just sort of sways on the spot and tries to follow her lead, a hand or her hip when she seems to want it, taking her hand when she offers it, and then she’s close and her lips are on his, and he’s relieved that this means he doesn’t have to watch her dance anymore. It’s not that she’s a bad dancer, it’s just that she’s too sexual for Kei’s taste. He’d been far more fascinated with the way she’d seemed to calculate her moves – from when to approach him to when to put a hand on her ass or use it to mess up her own hair – than with the bounce of her breasts or how tight her pants were, and he’d started to get bored.

She’s a good kisser. Kei hasn’t had that much experience, and he’s not going to think about that now, but she starts slow, just lips to let him get used to her, and then her tongue pushes into his mouth and one of her hands is on the back of Kei’s head to guide him as her other hand grips his shoulder. Kei isn’t sure what to do with his hands, so he just puts them on her waist. She doesn’t seem to mind that he’s mostly reacting to her and that pisses him off, that maybe she’s not expecting him to do anything, so he bites her lower lip softly. She responds by pulling away and trailing kisses down his neck.

He hadn’t noticed that they’d started getting away from the dance floor, too caught up in kissing this random girl who clearly knows how to use her mouth and who’s giving him the most actually pleasurable minutes he’s had since he landed on this country, but then he notices his back is against a wall and that her hands have started roaming lower than his chest. He grabs her by the wrist and pushes her away when she puts a hand on the front of his pants.

“¿Y por qué no?” she says, approaching him again, but Kei steps aside. “Me estai’ weando,” she says, eyes widening, voice disbelieving. “¿Erís maricón? Tenís que ser, po’. ¡Me tenía que tocar el chino maricón!”

She starts ranting. Kei doesn’t understand what she’s saying, but her tone and Sergio’s quick lesson on insults let him know it isn’t nice. He crosses his arms, raises an eyebrow, making sure all his contempt shows on his face, and sneers before walking away, ignoring her yells.

 

**Track 21:[Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above – CSS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7agPOt1XZz8)**

Counting the random girl, Kei has made out with four people. The first one had been a slightly tipsy girl on his first party at university. She’d approached him and told him she thought he was cute and that she’d really like to kiss him, and had laughed at his widened eyes and half-open mouth. She’d grabbed him by the hand and he’d followed her to a couch, and she’d kissed him, hadn’t even smirked when she’d realized he had no idea what to do. She had apologized, though, so Kei had kissed her instead, because he’d liked the feel of her lips on him, soft and gentle, and he wanted to continue. She’d let him control the rhythm of the situation until he felt comfortable, keeping her hands to herself for the most part, only moving them to steady herself or guide Kei’s head.

He’d seen her again at another party. She’d approached him again and repeated her line from their first time, and Kei’s reply had been to give a non-committal shrug that had still led to them in a corner, his hands on her waist and hers around his shoulders as they kissed.

The third time he’d seen her she’d had a girlfriend and had told him that, if he still needed someone to make out with, she had a friend who would probably volunteer. Said friend had been a guy whose hands had wandered a bit, but never below the waist.

He’d avoided the guy at the next party, not wanting to deal with what might happen if he tried to make things a bit less PG-13, because the truth was that he’d never felt that kind of urge and he’d never really wanted to explain it, keeping himself out of conversations about the subject, pretending he wasn’t surrounded by media that told him he should want it.

And then Kei had gotten drunk because he couldn’t deal with Kuroo’s stupid, confident, satisfied face, and had ended up pressed between Kuroo and a wall, kissing him, his hands reaching under Kuroo’s shirt to feel him closer. Kuroo had bitten and sucked on Kei’s neck, groaned as Kei pulled his hair, and then he’d ruined everything by asking, as he nuzzled Kei’s neck with his nose, if Kei wanted to go to his apartment.

Kei had stiffened. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t understand Kuroo’s intentions when he could pretty much feel them pressed against him, hard, and he couldn’t tell Kuroo that the reasons he’d pulled him into a dark corner had been that the idea of finding out what his mouth tasted like had distracted him too often when they spent time together, that he’d been wondering how much Kuroo used his teeth, that he’d often caught himself watching the back of Kuroo’s neck when he turned around and wanting to know if kissing it would make him shiver, and that there wasn’t any lust in any of those thoughts, just hopes of meeting for coffee every day, picking movies together on Friday nights, and trying to figure out how to cook something on Kuroo’s kitchen.

“This is a bad idea,” Kei had said, putting his hands on Kuroo’s chest and pushing him away. “We’re too drunk for this shit.”

“Then stay the night and we can resume in the morning,” Kuroo had replied, smirking.

Kei had shaken his head. “It’ll still be a bad idea then. You and I?” He’d sneered. “Whatever we are, this would only complicate it.”

Kuroo had seemed about to reply, maybe try to convince him, and Kei would have hated him then, for not listening, for not caring for his arguments, however lame they had been, but then he’d shrugged and walked to stand next to Kei, leaning against the wall.

“Still friends?” Kuroo had asked.

Kei hadn’t turned to look at him as he’d replied, “We aren’t friends.”

“Yeah, right.”

Kei had given him a side glance.

“Guess that means things stay the same,” Kuroo had said before walking away, turning one last time to tell Kei he’d text him when he arrived to his apartment.

Kei had stayed leaning against the wall and hadn’t moved until Kuroo’s text arrived forty minutes later, wishing him a good night.

Things hadn’t stayed the same, though. Kuroo hadn’t changed, but Kei started avoiding him. He’d stopped going to study at the library, stopped buying coffee in the campus, stopped replying to Kuroo’s texts (‘ **if u wer here u could tell me what kind of dinosaur this professor is** ’; ‘ **my hairbrush broke** ’; ‘ **things don’t have 2 b awkward between us. we just made out. ask bokuto i’ve made out with him** ’), and had spent far too much time in Yamaguchi’s dorm pretending he was fine and that he hadn’t started dropping by twice a week because he needed something that made him feel certain and Yamaguchi was the closest to a constant he had.

Now, Kei’s outside the club, breathing in the winter air and waiting for something, maybe a text from Kuroo wishing him a good night, maybe someone to tell him that everything’s fine.

Instead, he gets a couple stumbling out the door, laughing between kisses, and trying to dance, their movements a strange cross between a waltz and the kind of uncoordinated, jumpy dancing that’s only performed by the main characters of teen movies when they’re alone in their rooms, and not a single step fits the song that plays. It takes Kei a moment to recognize them as Marcela and Sergio.

He clears his throat out of secondhand embarrassment when Sergio tries to dip Marcela and instead of leaning back gracefully she looks like she’s in a limbo competition, while he’s clearly straining to support her weight.

“¡Chucha!” she says, covering her mouth and almost falling, while Sergio tries to help her stand. 

Kei snickers as they try to stand upright and then walk back into the club after muttering a quick 'See you later'.

He’s left alone again, and even more confused than before. He puts his hands inside his coat pocket and finds the capsule from the Kinder Surprise. With nothing better to do, he takes it out and opens it to find out what he’d got.

He’s expecting something oddly appropriate to the situation, like a cat, or a bottle. Instead, he gets a dinosaur on a skateboard.

He takes a picture of it and sends it to Yamaguchi.

**_new addition to the collection_ **

 

**Track 22: ~~Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke~~ [Born To Die – Lana Del Rey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bag1gUxuU0g)**

Kei hates his current companions.

He hates them for drinking and not choosing a designated driver. He hates them for not having enough money to pay for a cab. He hates them for realizing he hadn’t drunk anything. He hates them for remembering he has a driver’s license. He hates Juampi for asking they turn on the radio. He hates Beatriz for parking the car in a spot that requires all his concentration to get out of. He hates Marcela for breaking said concentration by asking they change the song. He hates Sergio for reaching from the backseat to change the station, accidentally hitting Kei and making him bump Beatriz’s car against the one at their left.

“Chuuuuuuuuuuuucha,” whispers Marcela as Sergio starts apologizing.

“Run, Forrest!” Beatriz yells, grabbing Kei’s arm tightly. “I’m uninsured!”

“Drive, drive, drive!” yells Juampi.

Kei will never understand how he makes it to get the car out of the parking lot in less than a minute with Marcela’s and Juampi’s nervous giggling, Beatriz’s panicked laughter and clapping, and Sergio repeating something along the lines of “Well, I managed to change the song, that counts for something, right?”

Once they’re at what Kei believes to be a safe distance, he stops the car and looks around, completely lost. He rests his head on the steering wheel and lets out a tired sigh before muttering, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Join the club,” Marcela says lightly, making Beatriz groan.

“This is why you can’t pick the music,” Juampi mutters.

 

**Track 23:[Luna – Ana Gabriel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2JXFsHHKk)**

They manage to reach the house thanks to Sergio keeping himself out of the tipsy pseudo-philosophic, absolutely confusing conversation/bickering started by the others.

Everyone’s almost sober when they reach the house at 6 in the morning, and everyone’s horribly hungry, so they end up making Kei drive around to try to find an open bakery because Beatriz mentioned she was craving cupcakes and the rest decided that cupcakes were a brilliant idea, and so they didn’t manage to enter the house and crash into their respective beds and sleeping bags until 7:30.

Kei stays up, though. He grabs his laptop and goes to the kitchen, texts Yamaguchi asking him if he can go online and starts a video call.

“Hi, Tsukki!”

“Hi, Yama-Tadashi,” Kei decides in a whim. When you’ve already run away after maybe messing up someone’s car, you might as well do something genuinely brave.

Tadashi’s eyes widen and he stares at Kei like he’s not sure he heard right. Kei needs him to stop doing that right now before he regrets the decision.

“Tsukki?” Tadashi’s brow is furrowed in confusion.

“What, Tadashi,” Kei says curtly, uses the name again to make things very clear so maybe he won’t have to explain what he’s doing.

Tadashi bites his lower lip, smiles slightly, nervously. “…how has Chile been… Kei?”

Kei sighs in relief, smiles just a tiny bit, and leans back on the seat.

“Messy. Everyone got drunk, they made me drive and I bumped into someone’s car."

“What?! Are you injured?” Tadashi practically jumps out of his seat, apparently ready to run in Kei’s help.

“It was just a bump.” Kei takes out his glasses and waits for Yamaguchi – Tadashi – to settle down. “It doesn’t matter… I made out with Kuroo,” he says as he rubs his eyes, so he won’t see Tadashi’s face. He puts on his glasses again, finds Tadashi looking at him without any surprise. He seems rather unimpressed, actually. “You knew?”

“I thought you were about to start dating. You have like 30 selfies with him.”

“Kuroo has them.”

“On Facebook. Hinata’s been nagging me to know why you haven’t changed your relationship status, says he doesn’t believe Kenma when he says there’s nothing going on.”

Kei makes a face. Tadashi snorts.

“Others have asked me too. Sugawara thought you and I had argued and that’s why I don’t know you’re dating Kuroo.”

“We’re not dating. We just made out. About a month ago.”

“A month ago?” Tadashi looks perplexed. “What happened?”

“He asked me to go with him to his apartment.”

Tadashi nods once, encouraging, the previous confusion gone from his face. Kei’s impressed, he’d expected Tadashi’s eyebrows to shoot up and his mouth to hang open. Then again, they’re both close to nineteen years old, they know that making out usually leads to other things, and Tadashi has a girlfriend, which is a thought Kei’s stopping right there before he becomes unable to look Yachi in the face.

“And I said no,” Kei finishes, letting his hands rest on the kitchen table.

That does make Tadashi’s eyebrows go up.

“Why? I thought there was something going on there.”

“I don’t want to sleep with him.”

“Really?”

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone, actually.”

“Oh… never?”

“Probably.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Kei says, voice hard and sure, ready to argue if Tadashi doesn’t erase the disbelief from his expression.

Tadashi blinks a couple of times, leans back, and shrugs, giving Kei a small smile.

“Well, if you say you’re sure, I believe you.” He looks pensive for a moment, bites his lower lip, and speaks again. “Did you tell him that?”

“Tell him what?” Kei asks defensively.

“That. That you don’t want sex.”

“No.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That sex would fuck things up.”

Tadashi snickers. “That’s a way to put it. So you told him you wanted to stay friends?”

“Why do people assume we’re friends?” He doesn’t manage to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“Thirty selfies, Tsukki.” A pause. “Kei.”

“I told him things should remain the same.”

“So he thinks you don’t want him.”

“I don’t want him,” Kei’s tone is severe. Tadashi doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated.

“The other kind of want. The one that means ‘I want you around me forever’.”

“I don’t want him in that way either.”

“Kei,” Tadashi’s voice is full patience, like one would speak to a small child, “the only way we got selfies with you in high school was by catching you by surprise. There’s one where you’re being restricted by Tanaka and Nishinoya.” His face hardens. “Tell him.”

Kei doesn’t say anything, keeps his expression blank, refuses to acknowledge what Tadashi’s trying to get to.

“I’m going to bed,” he says.

Tadashi narrows his eyes at him, shakes his head.

“I think he wants you in both ways.”

“Tadashi,” Kei warns.

“Thirty selfies.”

“He has more with Bokuto.”

“Bokuto takes more selfies than anyone. Tell him.”

“Good night, Tadashi.”

“Good night, Kei.”

Someone’s music player is on top of the table. Kei takes it to bed with him and falls asleep to songs he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand.

 

**Track 24:[Bailando – Enrique Iglesias ft. Descemer Bueno, Gente de Zona](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUsoVlDFqZg)**

The first thing Kei does when he wakes up is text Tanaka to tell him he met a girl.

The second thing is sending Kuroo a picture of the dent in Beatriz’s car and telling him that avoiding alcohol doesn’t solve anything, and, after some thinking, another text to let him know he’s uninjured.

Neither of them replies, but considering the time in Japan, Kei hadn’t expected it.

They end up staying for another night at the beach, because they woke up around five and decided to go to the bakery again to buy something for breakfast/lunch/dinner. They get what they call a “strawberry kuchen”, which Kei eyes with distrust until he has his first bite: he’s never wanted to cry out of joy over food before, but this makes it really hard for him to keep his face neutral.

There’s a text from Kuroo asking him if things between them are okay again. Instead of answering the question, Kei sends him the recipe for the kuchen and suggests they use it to put his kitchen to a use that isn’t re-heating take-out leftovers.

 

**Track 25: ~~Zombie – The Cranberries~~ [Beautiful Soul – Jesse McCartney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek2PDE1cAyY)**

Compared to his first week in Chile, the second one is so uneventful it’s worrying. Or maybe Kei has grown used to being dragged around by people who have a tendency to slip into Spanish when they’re not paying attention, only to later apologize for leaving him confused by buying him sweet things.

Tadashi texts every day to ask him if he’s talked to Kuroo.

Kuroo texts him every day to tell him how his day has been, and to ask for updates about his trip.

Tanaka texts him every day, selfies with Nishinoya, with the old volleyball club, asks about Kei’s trip and encourages him to do something fun. Kei’s reply is a video of Marcela’s music library being copied into his laptop.

Marcela and Sergio take him out to see the city, Beatriz drags him to buy clothes because she’s tired of seeing him wearing the same sweater every day, and Kei finds out that Juampi can deliver a flying kick when some guy tries to steal Kei’s phone.

On Kei’s last day, Marcela decides to throw a farewell party, which consists of spending the whole day wrapped in blankets in her living room watching terrible movies, drinking lots of tea, eating so many sweets Kei thinks he’ll get sick, and Marcela complaining because even in her house they won’t let her pick the music.

Around 6 pm, high on sugar and coffee, Kei grabs his phone, apologizes mentally to his parents for how much the call is going to cost, and calls Kuroo as Beatriz starts an impromptu karaoke session.

Kuroo picks up when Kei’s about to hang up.

“Why are you calling at this time?” Kuroo mumbles.

“We need to talk.” Japanese feels strange on his tongue after two weeks without speaking it, but at the same time it makes Kei feel braver. It’s one less thing to worry about, because he knows the words, the grammar, the pronunciation, and the only thing he actually has to think about is putting his head in order.

The others are watching Kei with confused expressions. Kei would be amused by how Marcela’s slinking towards the music player as they stare at him if he weren’t terrified by the silence from the other end of the line.

There’s a sharp intake of breath and Kuroo, finally, speaks, his voice tired and resigned and honest, Kei thinks, or hopes: “Tsukki…”

“It’s important,” Kei swallows, forces himself to talk. “Can you go online?”

“…okay. See you in a minute.”

Kei hangs up, excuses himself and goes to his room, locking the door.

Confused voices come from the living room, and then what sound like groans and complaints when the music currently playing is cut and a new song starts.

 _Seems like Marcela got to the music_ , Kei thinks as he turns on his laptop and sets up a video call.

Kuroo’s hair is sticking up in too many directions and there’s a mark on his cheek from the covers.

“Hi, Tsukki,” Kuroo says, smirking, no resentment for being woken up on the way he looks at Kei, just amusement hiding almost perfectly his curiosity, and something else that Kei is sure he’s seen before, but which he can’t put a name to.

Kei has neither time nor courage to waste on formalities.

“I don’t want to have sex with you,” he says.

Kuroo tilts his head slightly, up and to one side.

“You called me to tell me that?”

“I called to tell you that I don’t want to have sex with anyone, not just you. Ever.”

Kuroo’s eyes widen slightly, probably in disbelief, if Kei judges by how Tadashi had reacted when he’d told him. Kuroo’s lips part, but Kei isn’t in the mood to let him ask dumb questions.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” he says, his voice final.

“I’m friends with Kenma, I know what ‘asexual’ means,” Kuroo says matter-of-factly.

That makes Kei’s eyes widen.

“Asexual?”

“That’s what you’re saying, right? That you don’t feel that kind of attraction for anyone.”

Kei nods.

“Wait, you didn’t know the word?”

“I thought it was just me,” Kei mutters, eyes fixed anywhere but on Kuroo’s face.

“So… what does this mean?” Kuroo asks.

Kei looks at him again. Kuroo’s running a hand through his hair, shaping it into something similar to the usual disaster it is. He doesn’t seem to actually care for a reply to his question.

“What are you asking exactly?” Kei says, leaning back, trying to catch every movement, every change in Kuroo’s expression.

“What I’m asking is if there’s a reason you made out with me that night.”

Kuroo’s staring straight at Kei, as if trying to read him, and Kei doesn’t know if he wants to lie. Kuroo would catch him, anyway, and it’d lead to another month of awkwardness. He should have thought earlier what he wanted to say.

Kei swallows, presses his lips, laces his fingers.

“You like me,” Kuroo says, and smirks, but it’s gone after a long pause when he seems to notice that Kei won’t deny it. He raises an eyebrow. “You thought I just wanted to fuck you?”

“I know you wanted to that night,” Kei says, with less bite than he’d intended. It’s defeated, regretful.

“Yes, I did. But I would have asked you out in the morning,” Kuroo says, smiling in a way that lies in the border between ‘I’m just joking’ and ‘I’m being 100% honest’.

“Are you confessing your love for me?” Kei asks, deadpan, because Kuroo’s face doesn’t tell him anything and he has too many hopes to dare to interpret it, and he’s sure that everything he wants is showing on his face, for Kuroo to read and dissect.

“Yes, I am.” The smile is gone. Kuroo looks at him seriously, no teasing, no mocking, no laughter in his eyes or his lips, just that ‘something’ from earlier. “I can live without having sex with you, but I’d rather not live without you.”

“You didn’t just say that,” Kei mutters, embarrassed, but it doesn’t last long, because he finally understands that ‘something’ in Kuroo’s face and it steals his breath away: Kuroo’s looking at him like he’s made of stars.

 

**Track 26:[Tus Viejas Cartas – Enanitos Verdes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h8MU02nASw)**

Kei’s plane leaves at 3pm. The ride to the airport is a mess of tears from Beatriz and Sergio, and many promises to stay in touch from Marcela and Juampi. Kei can’t say he minds the idea of talking to them again, not when he already knows that Beatriz likes to drink black coffee, that Marcela has a particular weakness for one-hit wonders, that Sergio knits, and that Juampi goes out for a run every morning. He can’t mind the idea when all of them know he loved the strawberry kuchen and that it takes him too long to fall asleep at night. He can’t mind the idea after they had sat him down to eat the (in)famous charquicán and he’d reluctantly admitted that it actually tasted good. He can’t mind the idea when he has a dozen gifts from them in his suitcase.

“Text me when you get home, okay?” Marcela says for the sixth time when she’s hugging him goodbye.

“I’ll let you know, Marcela,” he says, patting her back stiffly.

 

**Track 27:[O… Saya – A.R. Rahman & M.I.A.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHUQht1HRmY)**

There are too many people waiting for Kei at the airport, and almost all of them should have better things to do on a Saturday morning.

He’s not surprised to see Tadashi and Yachi standing next to Akiteru, and Kei thinks he knows why Tanaka’s there, maybe even kind of understands why Nishinoya, Hinata and Kageyama decided to come as well, but he can’t explain the presence of Sugawara, Sawamura, Asahi and Shimizu.

“They said they missed you,” Tadashi says, smiling apologetically, but with a hint of amusement.

Kei wants to go home, get into bed and sleep, but everyone’s crowding him, asking him a thousand questions about South America and whether or not he got them presents, and he gets caught in a one-armed hug by Tanaka.

“I want the whole version, Tsukishima” Tanaka says, pointing an accusing finger at him. “What happened there?”

Kei watches him for a long moment and shrugs him off.

“I got drunk, ate lots of seafood, made out with a random girl, crashed a car, got my phone stolen, and spent a whole day watching terrible movies and listening to crappy pop music.”

Everyone stares for a long moment, and then they share awkward glances.

“Does Kuroo know about the girl?” Kageyama asks, at the same time Hinata breathlessly says, “You cheated on Kuroo?”

“We’re not dating,” Kei says, and starts walking towards the door without paying attention to the expressions of disbelief and the scolding directed at him.

Tadashi catches up to him and whispers, “So you talked to him?”

Kei nods and Tadashi smiles.

 

**Track 28: Beautiful Soul – Jesse McCartney**

Everyone takes Kei home, and they spend too much time there, eating all the food his mother had prepared to welcome him back, and making him tell the version of his trip that doesn't include alcohol and making out with a girl who later insulted him.

They leave after about two hours, but not before making Kei promise that he’ll meet up with all of them the next day for a game, for old times’ sake, and so they can catch up. He thinks he could have gotten them to leave without agreeing to anything if he’d argued a bit, but he hadn’t really wanted to, and, also, Akiteru and his mom were there and they would have insisted he went, making things a bit harder, so he’d just put on enough of a show to convince them that he really didn’t want to go before accepting the invitation and, finally, going to his room.

‘ **_i’m home_ ** ’ he texts Marcela as he’s getting into bed, and he sleeps until around 5pm, when his phone rings.

“What?” he mumbles, trying to get his brain to function.

“It’s me,” Kuroo’s voice says.

“That’s not very enlightening,” Kei says, reaching for his glasses, blinking away the sleep that clings to his eyelids and threatens to lower them again.

“Yes, yes,” Kuroo says, chastising. “Just open your window.”

He doesn’t need to look to know what he’ll find, but there’s a part of him that refuses to believe it, so he scrambles out of bed and looks out: Kuroo’s standing in Kei’s yard, tanned and smiling.

“I’m gonna hang up now,” Kuroo says, waving at Kei. “Open you window and don’t move from there.”

Kei does as is told and watches as Kuroo taps at his phone for a moment and raises it over his head as the same song that Marcela had put on when Kei had finally dared to talk to Kuroo a couple of days ago starts playing. Then Kuroo starts singing the damn song and it proves too much for Kei, who fights the urge to slam the window closed or hide his face behind his hands. He can see passersby stare at Kuroo, and he’s sure he heard the front door opening, which means either his mom or Akiteru or both of them are seeing this, but he still doesn’t really want Kuroo to stop his ridiculous show, so when he lowers the volume after the first chorus, Kei’s slightly disappointed.

“Did you return earlier from the beach just for that?” Kei says, hopefully loud enough to be heard.

“No, I returned earlier to formally ask you to be my cuddlebuddy,” Kuroo replies, serious.

It takes Kei a moment to process the words.

“Wait right there,” Kei says, and definitely doesn’t run outside. He just walks very fast, with far more enthusiasm than he’s ever put into anything else he’s ever done, and passes his mother at the door, ignoring her question about whether or not she should set another place at the table for dinner.

He stands in front of Kuroo, watches him warily.

“How did you say that with a straight face?” he asks. He knew this would happen the moment the video call from two days ago had ended, Kuroo had promised it, but it’s still different to hear someone say ‘I’ll ask you out when you come back’ to having them sing in your yard and say funny-sounding words.

“It’s important. I had to say it seriously.”

He’s not sure how to reply, so he takes out the Kinder Surprise capsule that he’s been carrying in his pants’ pocket for days and gives it to Kuroo, who studies it.

“Is this your answer? What does it mean?”

“It means ‘okay’,” Kei says, barely audible.

Kuroo hears him anyway. He’s smiling, looking at Kei as if he was perfection and beauty and eternity reaching towards him. It makes Kei’s stomach twist and his heart race, but it doesn’t terrify him as much as knowing that he’s looking at Kuroo in the same way; that he can’t hide it, even if he tries.

So instead, he doesn’t try. He tells Kuroo he can stay for dinner if he wants to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> The car Tsukishima bumped into belonged to the girl who insulted him, because this is my fanfic and I want divine justice.
> 
> So, the insults: 'maricón' means something like 'fag'. It's a homophobic slur, and it's really ugly.
> 
> I've read two fics in which 'Beautiful Soul' is mentioned. My apologies to the authors if they didn't want me playing with their idea (just let me know and I'll change the song).
> 
> Cueca's our national dance.
> 
> Translation of the conversation in track 15:
> 
> “He's gonna be like shit tomorrow,” whispers Juampi, looking at Kei, who’s leaning against the bathtub with his eyes closed.
> 
> Kei hates everyone, starting with himself for drinking, and continuing with Beatriz for offering him the first bottle.
> 
> “And if we give him a mariscal?” whispers Beatriz.
> 
> “Where the fuck do we get a mariscal from?” snaps Marcela.
> 
> “We're going to need like fifteen mariscales for this,” says Sergio, who’s sitting next to Kei, matter-of-factly.
> 
> “From Valparaíso?” Juampi says.
> 
> “Sure, since going to Valparaíso is so easy,” Marcela says, voice full of sarcasm.
> 
> “Hey, it is easy, actually,” Sergio says.
> 
> “Hey, yes,” says Beatriz. “Let's go to Valpo?” (Note: 'Valpo' is a commom shortening of the city's name.)
> 
> “Will he want to go?” Marcela says doubtfully after a pause.
> 
>  
> 
> For more 'cultural' notes, I made a post [here](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/112934584305/cultural-notes-about-happy-copy-of-eden).


End file.
